Machine for boxing toothpicks.



o. 0. FREEMAN. MACHINE FOR BOXING TOOTHPIGKS. APPLICATION FILED NOT 1, 1907.

Patented Feb. 2, 1909'.-

2 SHEETS-SHEET 1.

7n: mmms PETERS 1:0,, WASHINGTON, n. z;

o. o. FREEMAN, MACHINE FOR BOXING TOOTHPIGKS. .AIPPLIOATION FILED NOV. 1, 1907.

91 1,227. 7 Patented Feb. 2, 1909.

THE uuRRls PETERS ca., WASHINGTON, 04 c4 .oHA LEso. FREEMAN, or blXFlELD, MAINE.

MACHINE non noxme 'ro'o rnrrcxs.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Feb. 2, 1909.

Application filed. November 1, 1907. Serial No. 400,297.

To all whom it may concerm' Be it known that 1, CHARLES C. FREEMAN, citizen of the United States, residing at Dixfield, county of Oxford, State of Maine, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Machines for Boxing Toothpicks, of which the following is a specification, reference being had therein to the accompanying drawings.

In my Patent No. 882,879, dated March 24,

1908, I have shown and described a machine for boxing tooth picks.

My present invention has for its object certain improvements on the machine shown in that application and embodies certain parts of the machine therein shown.

For the sake of the more satisfactory illustration of the invention, I have included in the drawings and descriptions of the present invention those parts-just referred 'to, but have not thought it necessary to describe them with the same fullness with which they are described in the application above referred to. I

The present invention has been designed with the object of insuring that thepicks shall arrive at the part of the machine known as the evening mechanism in a perfectly parallel position so that none of the tooth picks shall lie crosswise of the hopper or first receptacle of the evening device.

The invention will be fully understood from the following description taken in connection with the accompanyin drawings, and the novel features thereof wil be pointed out and clearly defined in the claims at the 4 close of the specification.

p In the drawings,-Figure 1 is a front elevation of the machine embodying my invention. Fig. 2 is a sidefelevation thereof, certain parts, by means of which the members of the device are supported, being omitted for clearness of illustration.

Referring to the draWings,-A re resents a tumbling barrel or hustler from w 'ch the finished icks are delivered to the boxing machine. he said picks fall from'the tumbling barrel into a trough 11 down which they slide to a wheel-conveyer 12 mounted on the shaft 13 and driven by a belt 14. Thewheelconveyer 12 is provided with narrow V- shapied buckets 15 alternating with wide buc when the buckets of the wheel-conveyer are all narrow buckets, such for instance as the buckets 15, that the feedis somewhat re- ,larger' buckets 51, at a oint at or ets 51. It is found in practice thattarded. On the other hand, if the buckets are all wide, such for instance as 51, that in the discharge ofthe picks from the wheelconveyer to the delivery chute, such as 20, the large loads follow each other so closely that there is not sufficient time given for one large load to get out of the way before another large load is dumped onto it, and, therefore, the mechanism for evening up the picks in the subsequent operations cannot so efficiently perform its work. I find in practice, therefore, that the most efiicient way, taking into consideration the roblem of handling a large number of toot picks and at the same time delivering them evenly to the box, is to alternate the narrow buckets with the wide buckets.

The narrow buckets 15 are preferably com osed of two walls, the rear one of which, 16, 1s radially disposed with relation to the wheel, and the other of which, 17, is eccentrically disposed, the edges nearer the center meeting together to form a somewhat V- shaped trough or bucket.

It is found in practice that if the picks are fed into the buckets, especially into the below the center of rotation of t e conveyer,'so that they will fall down to meet the u rising wall of the bucket, theywill pack in etter form in the bucket than if they are delivered to the bucket at a point above the center- In order, however, to enable this to be done and to prevent the picks from falling out of the bucket during the upward travel, it is necessary to have the outer periphery of the conveyer housed on the under side. I have, therefore, rovided a housing 18 for the under side 0 the conveyer extending downwardly from the lower end of the chute or trough 11 and preferably carried around the under side up to meet the discharge chute 20 on the opposite side from the feed chute 11. This housing serves to retain the picks within the buckets during the time that the buckets are upside down.

Preferably there is. a doctor 19 provided which serves to brush off any surp us icks from the buckets or those whose ends 1a pen to project beyond the periphery of t e conveyor. The wheel-conveyer 12 is preferably of a greater axial length than the lengths of the picks which are to be boxed; that is, the length of each bucket 15 and 51 measured in a line parallel with the axis of rotation is considerably greater than [will be from one of the 'the walls of which will length of the picks. This enablesa much larger quantity of picks to be carried by the conveyer than if the length of the buckets the length of the picks.

The picks are carried by the rotation of the conveyer around to the chute 20 into which they are discharged from the open outer ends of the buckets. buckets alternating with the wide buckets, after a discharge from one of the larger buckets into the chute 20, the next discharge smaller buckets 15, hold back the contents of the next approaching large bucket 51, thus giving opportunity discharged load of the first large bucket 51 to pass down out of the way.

The chute 20 is provided with inclined walls 21 and 22 and from the lower end of tee chute 20 they fall onto two boards 23 and 24 the lower edges of which are separated from each other as shown verge towards each other at t.i6ll lower end,

By reason of the narrow -were only as great or slightly greater than b for tue already 1 in Fig. l, by a space I preferably less than the width of the round l bottom chute 25 into which the picks pass through the opening between the lower edges of tie said boards 23 and 24.

1 find that by the use of the train of elements heretofore described and comprising the wheel convey r, chutes and inclined boards, the picks are deposited in the round bottom chute 25in a substantially parallel condition and at a rate which substantially uniform irrespective of the condition of the picks when delivered from the tumbler or hustler or the speed with which they are delivered.

The lower end of the round bottom chute 25 delivers the picks into the upper receptacle 26 of the evening mechanism from which they fall into the lower receptacle 27. The said lower receptacle 27 is constructed to open and deposit its contents in a box which is placed beneath it. The picks, while in the upper receptacle 26 and lower receptacle 27, are acted upon by plungers 28 and 29 at proper intervals and by this means the picks in the said receptacles are caused to lie with their ends even with each other. These plungers are operated by the shaft 291 which is caused to reciprocate longitudinally by the connecting rod which is attached to a crank 31 on a shaft 32.

In order that the picks in the upper evening receptacle 26 may lie horizontally and not obliquely as would be the case if the stream of picks, which pours out of the bot tom of the round bottom chute 25, were continuous, I provide a pair of gates 33 and 34 whichoperate alternately to close the chute 25 and prevent temporarily the passage of picks to theupper evening receptacle. These two gates 33 and 34 are located at some conpreferably provided with rubber shoes which are downwardly inclined and con-= venient distance apart and are both connected at their upper ends to a walking beam 35 pivoted at36 to the frame. One end of the walking eam35is connectedto a lever 37 also pivoted to the frame at38 and the other endof the said lever 37 is moved. up and down by a. cam rod 39 upon the lower end of wl -ch is a cam follower so. The said cani follower 4-0 runs in a cam groove 41 cut in the surface of a plate cam 42 mounted in the end of the shaft 4; The said shafts 13, 32 and are driven by bolts 14, 14 and 45 from pulleys on the main driving shaft 46. The said gates 33 and Ill are thereby given motion at stated intervals with relation to the opening and closing of the upper evening receptacle as so that no picks are passing into the said evening receptacle during the time when. it opening and closing.

The lower ends of the gates Call} and 34- are 331 and 341, respectively. It is not necessary, in order to stop the llow of the picks, for the gates in their descent to pass entirely through the mass of picks to the bottom of the chute 25, but the impinging of the lower ends of the gate upon the mass of picks will be sufficient to stop the l low. The rubber shoes on the lower ends of the gates enable this to be done without injury to the picks. t will thus be seen that the upper gate 34.- holds back the picks in the round bottom chute 25 while the picks which were between the two gates 33 and 3 larc sliding into the evening receptacle. T hereafter when the lower gate is down and the upper gate is raised, the picks in the trough are allowed to slide down against the lower gate preparatory to being discharged into the upper evening receptacle 26.

I claim as my invention:

1. In a machine for boxing tooth picks and. the like, a rotary wheel-conveyor provided with a continuous series of buckets upon its periphery, some of said bucl'iets being relze tively narrow and the others being of considerably greater width than said narrower ones, the narrower buckets and. the wider buckets alternating with each other.

2. In a machine for boxing tooth picks and the like, a rotary wheel-conveyor provided with a continuous series of buckets upon its periphery, some of said buckets being V- shaped transversely of the axis of rotation, and the other buckets being of considerably greater width both at the top and the bottom than said if-shaped buckets, said V- shaped buckets and said wide buckets alternating with each other.

3. In a machine for boxing tooth picks and the like, a rotary wheel-conveyer provided with a continuous series of buckets upon its periphery, some of said buckets being V-shapcd transversely of the axis of rotation, and the other buckets being of considerably greater buckets duringtheir descent Said guide boards being inclined downwardly towards each other, their bottom edges being separated by a narrow s ace, an i hich the pibks fall widthboth at the top and thebottom than said I chute, V-shaped buckets, said V-shaped buckets and said. wide buckets alternating with each. other, a feed chute which supplies tooth picks to the uprising buckets be ow the axis of rotation, a discharge chute to which the picks are delivered from the buckets in their descent and a housing on the under side of the wheel-conveyer extending from the feed chute to the discharge chute.

4. In a machine for boxing tooth picks and the like, a rotary wheel-conveyerprovided with a continuous series of buckets upon its periphery, some of said buckets being V- sha ed transversely of the axis of rotation, an the other buckets being of considerably greater width both at the top and the bottom than said V-shaped buckets, said V- shaped buckets and said wide buckets alternating with each other, a feed chute which supplies picks to the buckets while they are risin during the rotation, a discharge chute inclined trough into W through the narrow space between said boards, an evening device into which the picks are discharged from said last mentioned inclined trough, and a pair of gates which alternately engage the mass of picks in said last mentioned chute at different points in the chute, one of said gates being open when the other is closed whereby when the first gate is closed, the mass'of picks below it may be discharged, and when the first gate rises and the secon gate is closed the stream of picks may flow until it is engaged by the second gate, and when the second gate again rises and the first one closes another load of picks may be discharged.

6. In a machine for boxing tooth icks, an inclined trough chute, mechanism or delivering picks into the upper art of the chute, a receptacle into which t e picks are discharged .from the lower end of the chute, a pair of vertically reciprocable gates above the said chute spaced apart from each other and adaptedto move down upon the mass'of picks in the chute alternately and at diflerent points from each other, means for vertically reciprocating said gates in opposite directions whereby when one gate 1s up the other is down, and vice versa, and whereby when the gate which engages the mass at the higher elevationis closedthe mass of picks below'it may be discharged, and when the lowermost gate is closed the stream of picks may flow until it is engaged by thelowermost gate, and when the said lowermost gate again rises and the u permost gate closes the to w ich the picks are delivered from the in the rotation, a pair of inclined guide boards onto which the picks are discharged from said discharge chute, said guide boards being inclined downwardly towards each other, their bottom edges being separated by a narrow space and an inclined trough into which the picks fall through the narrow space between. sai boards. V

5. In a machine for boxing tooth picks and thelike, a rotary wheel-conveyer provided with a continuous series of buckets upon its periphery, some of said buckets being V- shaped transversely of. the axis of rotation, and the other buckets being of considerably greater width both at the top and the bottom than said V-shaped buckets, said V- intermediate mass 0 the picks between the shaped buckets and said Wide buckets altergates may be discharged.

natingwith each other, afeed chutewhich sup- In testimony whereof I affix my signature, 90

7 picks are discharged from said discharge two witnesses.

plies picks to the buckets while they are rising CHARLES C. FREEMAN.

uring the rotation, a discharge chute to I which the picks are delivered from the buckets during their descent in the rotation, a pair of inclined guide boards onto which the in presence of Witnesses:

GUY A. DIKE, ALICE I-I. MORRISON. 

